Fixing the Splinter Cannon

The Splinter Cannon has seen better days. At the moment, its pretty widely considered to be a deceptively appealing upgrade, but more often than not, wasted points.

Looking at it, I think it can be broken down into several factors. The italicized text will give a short summary of my admittedly wordy analysis.

It offers a negligible benefit to vehicles:

Spoiler:

You pay 15 Points for 2 extra shots, and that's bad.

It offers no benefit to infantry:

Spoiler:

It's cheaper and infinitely more worthwhile to buy more infantry instead of the Cannon.

Nothing distinguishes it from regular Splinter Weapons:

Spoiler:

The Cannon costs more and does less for what it brings to the table.

With that in mind, I propose the following changes to the Splinter Cannon:
1 - Change its type to Heavy 6, giving it an identical ability to the Dark Lance.
2 - Change its AP to -1

With those changes, it'll be killing,
1.67 GEQ - 20% Increase
1.00 MEQ - 33% Increase
0.33 TEQ - 48% Increase

Compared to the Shuriken Cannon,
1.22 GEQ
0.61 MEQ
0.39 TEQ

Compared to the Heavy Bolter,
1.11 GEQ
0.67 MEQ
0.22 TEQ

Given that the Splinter Cannon costs 20% more than the Shuriken Cannon and just under double a Heavy Bolter, I'd say this would be a better balanced option that is far more worthwhile.

Is it a problem with the mechanics of the weapon or with the point cost? If a Splinter Cannon cost 5-10 points I think it would be worthwhile. Personally I would prefer a cheap cost than a re-write of the mechanics.

I'm not overly keen on removing the splinter cannons on my Venoms, so I'll continue to use them (I only own three-can't spam it), and getting in close isn't too bad since the guys inside want to be close anyway.

Breaks out 3rd edition codex

So back in the day the Splinter Cannon was S4 AP 5 Assault 4, compared to the S 3 AP 5 Rapid Fire Splinter Rifle. Both had 24" range.

Personally, I might suggest going back to Assault 4 24", but give it wounding on 2+ and AP -1.

But yes. Cheaper or Better, it really needs to be seriously buffed to be remotely viable this edition.

The statement regarding venoms is not really accurate. You are paying 15 points for extra range as well as more shots at every range band and beyond

12"or less - 4 vs 6 shots
13-18" - 2 vs 6 shots
19-24" - 2 vs 3 shots
25-36" - 0 vs 3 shots

The fact of the matter is those range bands are significant. That sweet spot at 17-18 inches is a big deal! Again at 24"+ when you can reach out and shoot things when you can't with rifles.

It's more complex than 2 extra shots

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Is it a problem with the mechanics of the weapon or with the point cost? If a Splinter Cannon cost 5-10 points I think it would be worthwhile. Personally I would prefer a cheap cost than a re-write of the mechanics

That, of course, would be a simple solution. It'd probably kill two birds with one stone as well, as it'd make Venoms a bit more appropriately costed. I just find discussions with the premise of "how can we make this worth its cost" are a lot more interesting than "what should this cost, as is."

We are in agreement that as is, it should cost 5-10 points.

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Personally, I might suggest going back to Assault 4 24", but give it wounding on 2+ and AP -1.

That would synergize very well with Kabalites, actually. Perhaps two firing modes like in previous Codexes would give it some versatility?

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The statement regarding venoms is not really accurate. You are paying 15 points for extra range as well as more shots at every range band and beyond

I prefer to measure things in regards to their overall threat range, as opposed to simply weapon range. Consider the Dark Lance verses the Lascannon. A Space Marine Predator is limited in that it has to remain stationary for a Lascannon to hit on a 3+ Since it can't move and fire to full effect, you can say that its threat range is 48." A Raider on the other hand can move its full 14" and still hit at full BS. Thus, you can establish the threat range for a Raider is its movement, plus it's weapons range, making it a full 50."

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The fact of the matter is those range bands are significant. That sweet spot at 17-18 inches is a big deal! Again at 24"+ when you can reach out and shoot things when you can't with rifles

Especially in regards to our vehicles, range matters a lot less for us as opposed to a gunline army. Consider your standard Dawn of War deployment, where the players zones are spaced 24" apart. You can deploy your Venom in the front of your zone, then move 16," meaning your Venom is now 8" from the enemy deployment zone.

I've noticed two prominent deployment patterns that show up in varying degrees with my opponents.

1 - They put their assault units in the front of their zone for easier charges.

2 - They put chaff in the front of their deployment zone for area denial, and to leave room for backfield artillery.

Generally, I see infantry in the front, tanks in the back (the exception being mechanized armies, but Splinter Fire won't be effective against that in any scenario).

When your optimal targets are within 8 inches of you, it doesn't matter if your maximum range is 36, 24, 18, 12, or 10 Inches, as long as you can make it to 8, the rest is irrelevant.

So at this point our special weapon is the blaster (all others are either massively overpriced, crap, or both), our infantry heavy weapon is the Dark Lance (since the Splinter Cannon is far too expensive as is to be at all cost effective, leaving us with one choice), our vehicle heavy weapon is either DL or Dissies, our Wych Weapon is the Hydra Gauntlet, and our melee weapon is the Agonizer/ECwhip.

Truly we are a varied and flexible army, with many options.

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So at this point our special weapon is the blaster.

A Blaster does .89 damage to a Rhino opposed to a DLs 1.19 (that's after moving, mind you. So 25% less damage and half the range at best. (At worst it's 43% less effective, and a Plasma Gun outclasses both for less points. )

Yes. But there are some places where a DL is not available. In those places we are forced to use the inferior blaster.

FuelDrop wrote:

Yes. But there are some places where a DL is not available. In those places we are forced to use the inferior blaster.

Or just not bring those 'places'.
Haemi, Scourge and Ravager spam+ 2 or 3 Wrack Venoms (Ossefactors for potentially infinite Mortal Wounds) plus some fliers and you're laughing.

FuelDrop wrote:

So at this point our special weapon is the blaster (all others are either massively overpriced, crap, or both), our infantry heavy weapon is the Dark Lance (since the Splinter Cannon is far too expensive as is to be at all cost effective, leaving us with one choice), our vehicle heavy weapon is either DL or Dissies, our Wych Weapon is the Hydra Gauntlet, and our melee weapon is the Agonizer/ECwhip.

Truly we are a varied and flexible army, with many options.

There will always be a best option (eg. grav in 7e) but more options and at least a semblance of choice would be nice.

Thus you are telling me to not use half our units...

Aparently something is not right if the units are inherently so much better that others just won't see any use. We are not even talking about better in a few cases just always worse right?

like count adamar said.
At least the illusion of choice by having a unit better in some cases, even if usually the other might be better.
Or like Dissies DL, where the debate still rages (and in my mind the best option is some of both).

Yep, i dont use splinter cannons any more... heck i dont even use venoms (i have 9 and i boxed them away).

IMO its a trash weapon that doesnt do damage well enough to anything.

Yes you can spam mass fire, but its not mass enough and MC's getting 2/3/4+ save many times with a FnP style save too, i'd rather just shoot, Blaster, Dis Cannons or DL's at them.

Over all it has 0 place in any of my lists.

In an edition where individual models are capable of putting out 40+ shots per turn, many with high strength and decent AP, for some reason it was felt necessary to nerf the living hell out of a weapon that was only putting out 6 shots (and never more than 2 such weapons per model) with the lackluster poison rule and no AP.

To make it even remotely viable it needs to be 10 points and Assault 6. That way it is still viable on infantry (hello Scourges) and vehicles and is actually worth taking.

Count Adhemar wrote:

In an edition where individual models are capable of putting out 40+ shots per turn, many with high strength and decent AP, for some reason it was felt necessary to nerf the living hell out of a weapon that was only putting out 6 shots (and never more than 2 such weapons per model) with the lackluster poison rule and no AP.

To make it even remotely viable it needs to be 10 points and Assault 6. That way it is still viable on infantry (hello Scourges) and vehicles and is actually worth taking.

Obviously they needed to nerf it! They were getting rid of the Salvo rule and couldn't be bothered to put thought into it so they slapped rapid fire 3 on it and called it a day.

I am honestly unsure if our current sorry state is due to active malevolence or casual indifference.

I think there is a second issue as well, which hasn't really been touched on: Poison just isn't a great rule.

Back in 5th it was okay. It was poor against guardsmen and eldar but good against bikes, MCs and such. It wasn't amazing but it was fluffy and made us feel a little more tricky.

However, 6th brought in MCs with 2+ saves and FNP, which required drastically more poison to torrent down. It also brought in Flying Monstrous Creatures (even harder to torrent) and Hull Points. These could be seen as a backhanded nerf to poison as it was a rule we got in place of any high-strength weapons with decent rates of fire (like Multilasers or Splinter Cannons).

7th made Hull Points the premier way to kill vehicles (besides D-weapons and Grav), punishing us even more for our reliance on poison. As a final kick in the teeth they made larger MCs all but immune to poison, negating its purpose entirely.

In 8th things have gotten a little better (until you remember the nerfs, the loss of Splinter Racks and such), as Wraithknights and such are no longer immune to Poison and it can now wound vehicles on 6s. Know what else can wound vehicles on 6s? Lasguns. And I can get a hell of a lot more shots from those than I can from splinter weapons.

And, yes, I'm aware that that is little more than a bonus, but I think it still raises the question of what we're sacrificing to get poison on all our weapons and whether it's even remotely worth it.

The first point worth noting is that we get no advantage against T4 compared with basic bolters and are actually at a disadvantage against T3.

Now, of course, we do seem to get an advantage against T5+ (except against T5-7 vehicles, which Bolters are better against). However, with MCs having so many more wounds now, and poison getting basically no corresponding discount or increase in firepower, torrenting them down with poison is looking less and less enticing. Far better surely to use more meaningful weapons (Dark Lances, Disintegrators etc.) and save the basic weapons for anti-infantry purposes? So now we come back to the issue of splinter weapons being no better against MEQ than bolters and significantly worse against GEQ.

However, this is before we look at the real opportunity cost. Because splinter weapons don't just replace out basic weapons - they also replace virtually all of our medium and heavy weapons. We have no equivalent to the Heavy Bolter, Shurien Cannon or any such. If you consider Blasters to be our meltagun equivalent, then we have nothing to mimic Plasma. We have no Flamers (alright we have 1 - but it's crap and not available on most of our units) for anti-infantry duty.

Put simply, I'm just not convinced that Poison is a useful rule for us. It gives us a slight edge against MCs (though not much given that most other basic weapons still wound them on 5s now), but that edge is quickly lost when we lose out on more specialised anti-MC/anti-vehicle/anti-heavy-infantry weapons.

TL:DR I think the splinter cannon is just a symptom of a much bigger issue with our army and that Splinter weapons need a complete redesign.

I entirely agree with Shredder. Poison is, at this point, a worse all-rounder than ST 4. Vehicles are more common than monsters by a long shot, and T3 infantry is flavor of the month.

We don't even do poison best. That would, naturally, be Space Marines (Hellfire rounds for 2+ poison).

Which is symptom of another problem. We aren't the best at our specialties by a long shot. Our weapons list is heavily limited, and of that small list there are only a couple that are actually usable.

Our firepower is so anemic that we are posting large numbers of threads trying to work out the optimum options for our very limited weapon slots, attempting to shave in that extra .5% efficiency out of our extremely limited selection. How many people have been working on the exact optimum darklance/disintegrator loadout now? I mean we've pretty much eliminated every other weapon in the codex from being cost effective at this point, and soon we will have the exact ratio needed to squeeze the most out of our overcosted, underarmed and inflexible vehicles.

But let us get back to basics. The Dark Eldar are known to do 2 things well: Poison, and speed.
Well poison, as we have established, is not so great anymore. That leaves Speed.
Not only do we not do that best (We're probably upper middle for speed at best by this point), and without facings speed has lost a lot of its tactical value anyway. No point flanking for those juicy rear armour shots anymore.

I am also with Shredder
But with some site notes. I think we need some boost and accept that poison is effectively roughly a s3 weapon against half the targets (vehicles and infantry of half the armies) and s4 against other infantry
only against bikers and monsters is it s5 or 6
But I do not think this is a problem if costed ok. But as mentioned it is a problem that we lack other weapons.
But if they make our alternatives (shredder, heat lance, haywire and blaster) ok again, possibly with a few more options to take them I think our biggest problems are gone.
What i would like is if they could make the splinter cannons deal 2 wounds (and probably have ap-1) make them again the big version of our normal splinter weapons, give them a function besides just putting out a few shots more then the splinter rifle. I say keep them where they are (15 points rapid 2 and range 36, but make them deal 2 wounds with ap-1) let us get back to being scary for those monsters, bikers, etc
We are supposed to get a tool for each job, let us have it.
Splinter rifles as normal guns
Haywire to open vehicles
heat lances as short range / light vehicle bursters
dark lances as long range anti tank
dissies as long range anti heavy infantry/ light tanks
splinter cannon against monsters and bikers
shredders as our flamer EQ

|Meavar wrote:

What i would like is if they could make the splinter cannons deal 2 wounds (and probably have ap-1) make them again the big version of our normal splinter weapons, give them a function besides just putting out a few shots more then the splinter rifle. I say keep them where they are (15 points rapid 2 and range 36, but make them deal 2 wounds with ap-1) let us get back to being scary for those monsters, bikers, etc

Even with D2, AP-1 they're not worth 15 points with the Rapid Fire rule. It effectively halves their range and puts them slap bang in the charge range of the targets they're best suited to fire on. For 15 points I'd still want them to be Assault 6. I'd even take Heavy 6 but with a similar rule to the Dark Lances and Dissies on where they become Assault on vehicles.

|Meavar wrote:

We are supposed to get a tool for each job, let us have it.
Splinter rifles as normal guns
Haywire to open vehicles
heat lances as short range / light vehicle bursters
dark lances as long range anti tank
dissies as long range anti heavy infantry/ light tanks
splinter cannon against monsters and bikers
shredders as our flamer EQ

Haywire needs a rule change. It's garbage at the moment.

Heat Lances are comically overpriced.

Dark Lances are excellent and I think they're just about spot on, as are Dissies.

Splinter Cannon with the above changes would be good

Shredders need a complete rewrite. 8 points for that piece of...rubbish?! Make them flamer equivalent (D6 autohits) with the same profile and charge maybe 10 points?

@ Count Adhemar

yes as I mentioned the other werapons should be made ok again as well (so haywire needs about double the output it has now.
Heatlances need a steep price reduction (some vote for a S increase, but i would rather keep them a special weapon equavalent so keep current stats and around 10-12 points)

I agree dark lances and dissies are very well done for their price range.

I think we have the same view of our shredders

I think blasters need a point reduction (probably around 8-10 as well)

I am not sure if I agree they should become assault/heavy, I like that now for a lot of our weapons our optimum range is just in charge range. It means that we either need to sacrifice something or wipe the target completely. It makes us a high risk high reward playstyle, which I think suits us very well. So I would be more inclined to say we become rapid fire 4 instead of assault/heavy 6 (the only exception being if they want to put us back again as the speedy faction then they should give all our vehicles a 8 inch advance move and make them assault. But since we are not the speedy faction anymore I say put more emphasis on our risk reward playstyle.

|Meavar wrote:

I am not sure if I agree they should become assault/heavy, I like that now for a lot of our weapons our optimum range is just in charge range. It means that we either need to sacrifice something or wipe the target completely. It makes us a high risk high reward playstyle, which I think suits us very well. So I would be more inclined to say we become rapid fire 4 instead of assault/heavy 6 (the only exception being if they want to put us back again as the speedy faction then they should give all our vehicles a 8 inch advance move and make them assault. But since we are not the speedy faction anymore I say put more emphasis on our risk reward playstyle.

I wouldn't mind having more risk/reward but getting our vehicles into charge range of their targets isn't so much a risk as outright suicide! And the reward isn't enough to justify that.

Regarding other weapons.

- I agree that Dark Lances and Disintegrators are fine.

- I think Blasters either need to get d6 damage (or perhaps a straight 3?), or else be lowered in cost.

- With regard to Haywire, perhaps more shots would be the answer? I don't know, it seems really out of place at the moment.

- Agreed about Shredders becoming flamer weapons (so d6 auto-hits) and increasing in cost a bit.

- Regarding Heat Lances, what if they became cheaper but instead of being melta weapons they instead roll 2d6 for damage (dropping lowest) even at maximum range? That said, I think they could do with some other recompense for losing the Lance rule.

Maybe have heat lances treat any toughness higher than 6 as 6?

The Shredder wrote:

- I think Blasters either need to get d6 damage (or perhaps a straight 3?), or else be lowered in cost.

I prefer lower cost. I see the Blaster more as an anti-heavy infantry weapon. D6 would be overkill for a premium price imo.

The Shredder wrote:

- With regard to Haywire, perhaps more shots would be the answer? I don't know, it seems really out of place at the moment.

I think it should simply do more damage. 2 Mortal Wounds and 2D3 on a 6+ and you have a reliable vehicle killer that is bad against everything else.
Of course, it could also be made Assault 2, but I prefer to have less dice to roll per round.

The Shredder wrote:

- Agreed about Shredders becoming flamer weapons (so d6 auto-hits) and increasing in cost a bit.

Am I actually the only one who thinks that the S6 on Shredders is utterly wasted? Of course, it needs to be a flamer, but I'd rather have something that excels at killing GEQ, as we can deal with high toughness already.

The Shredder wrote:

- Regarding Heat Lances, what if they became cheaper but instead of being melta weapons they instead roll 2d6 for damage (dropping lowest) even at maximum range? That said, I think they could do with some other recompense for losing the Lance rule.

That's an option but for me, the biggest dealbreaker is high cost and S6.
Make it S7, ~23pts with AP-4 and leave the special rule.

The Strange Dark One wrote:

Am I actually the only one who thinks that the S6 on Shredders is utterly wasted? Of course, it needs to be a flamer, but I'd rather have something that excels at killing GEQ, as we can deal with high toughness already.

Well, S6 does mean we wound GEQ on a 2+ (with a re-roll) so with D6 autohits you could kit out 4 Trueborn or Scourges for anti-GEQ duty and expect them to kill ~10 GEQ per turn.

Regarding the strength of the Shredder, I'm largely indifferent (although I supposed I do have a horse in that race ). My main issue is that it really needs to be a flamer weapon - not a weakling blast.